Belated 9 month state of the Willa address

My baby is 9 months old! 

On the 11th she had seven teeth, slept from 8-8, ate like a champ, and was dabbling with walking and crawling.  She has gotten very good at it in the past three weeks, so here are some videos to show you just how far she has come!

She goes to Kindermusik once a week and Little Gym twice.  She really lights up when she sees the other kids, and is impressing everyone with her tallness and her toothiness.  At her doctor's appointment she weighed 17 pounds, 1 ounce and measured 29.5 inches long.  This puts her in the 40th percentile for weight and 96th for height.  Wow! We're not surprised, but I'm definitely excited that she moved up from the 24th weight percentile.  And no wonder, she is eating so many things!

This month she started loving Cheerios and regularly eats them on her own.  We also started her on other Gerber snacks, as well as little bits of bread and cheese.  She eats mostly purees and still nurses for most of her nutrients, but it is sure a lot of fun to watch her try new things!

Her sign vocabulary now includes "milk," "want," "Daddy," and "up."  She is thiiiiis close to "all done," and babbles a lot, so I'm sure she will add more in no time!

The cutest thing she started doing is giving air kisses by pursing her lips and sucking in her cheeks.  It truly is the best thing ever, and hopefully it means we will skip the soggy open mouthed baby kisses, although they are delightful :-).

At this milestone month I have to stop and reflect that being her mom has only gotten better.  It makes me so excited for the future, and so thankful for the present moment.  We love you, Little Miss!!

Happy Halloween!

Our little miss Willa was a shark for her first Halloween, owing to her many teeth and propensity to chew everything to bits!

Chomp chomp

We dressed like Sheriff Brody and Quint to match her!

To celebrate, last Saturday we went to the Little Gym for their Halloween party with a bunch of other kids.  The activities there skewed a little old for her, but she had fun walking around the padded space and seeing some of her friends.

Baby friends!

That night we hosted a Costumed Pumpkin Carving for my work friends.  Only a handful of people came, but luckily for Willa one of them was her friend, Petra.

There was some mutual hugging/chomping action

We dabbled in some pumpkin painting, but because she was not allowed to eat it, it wasn't a fun experience for her.  So, I kept it quick and this was the result.  Hopefully she will like it more next year!

Thanks for the idea, Pinterest!

I also had fun with a little video of her in her costume today.  I was hoping that she would go after Roxy, but as always, I was her preferred chomping target!

I am definitely learning that having a kid makes Halloween lots more fun!  I can't wait for next year, and it's a lot of fun to reflect on how far we have come in a year :-).